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(041712) For a movie studio, hype can be the trickiest of beasts. It can be a film's best
ally -- providing a word-of-mouth marketing push that no amount of money can buy
-- but it also can be a project's worst enemy, burdening it with unfairly lofty
expectations that no superpower reasonably can be expected to overcome.
Controlling the hype is out of the question. Rather, one must hope merely to
manage it. Imagine the Hulk, but in blog form: "Hype SMASH!". It's something
the folks behind the congenial and wholly satisfying superhero omnibus "The
Avengers" certainly know something about.
A years-in-the-making comic book casserole, "The Avengers" teams up some of the
Marvel Comics universe's most iconic superheroes -- along with some of its
lesser-known ones -- all in one big, fat, popcorn-devouring, world-saving
package.
Attempting to pay off on the promise made the first time Samuel L. Jackson's
Avengers-assembling Nick Fury crashed the credits of 2008's "Iron
Man" (and continuing through "The
Incredible Hulk," "Iron
Man 2," "Thor"
and "Captain
America"), it also is a movie fanboys have been breathlessly awaiting,
Pavlovian puddles appearing with every casting announcement or from-the-set news
nugget.
That kind of hype could generate the kind of fan delirium that puts a movie in
the record books -- or it could trigger the sort of vitriolic, pre-release
backlash that has sunk other comic book films before they even hit the screen.
("Green
Lantern," anyone?) "The Avengers" will be one of the former, my Spidey
senses tell me. Big, loud, ridiculous and eye-popping, writer-director Joss
Whedon's film is an empty-calorie summertime treat that delivers on all that it
promises.
It's not hard to understand why people are so excited for The Avengers. For
starters, its release signals the start of the annual summer blockbuster season,
when audiences can look forward to four solid months of effects-heavy escapist
entertainment. Secondly, for the millions of moviegoers who have followed the
individual Marvel heroes through their own big-screen adventures (not to mention
their own comic-book titles), the thought of Iron Man, Captain America, Thor and
the Hulk sharing the same frame and battling the same common enemy (as well as
each other) is pretty remarkable. And lastly, there's the fact that the Avengers
are assembling under the watchful eye of writer/director Joss Whedon, at last
making his leap from cult artist to mainstream movie-maker While Whedon's name
might not mean anything to a good 50-60 percent of the audience that will show
up opening weekend, there will be a significant segment of moviegoers more
thrilled about seeing his name in the credits than any of the actors'. With all
these various elements coming together, who can blame those viewers who are
heading into the theater expecting to see the comic book movie to end all comic
book movies?
Not to be a total killjoy, but they may want to temper those sky-high
expectations a bit. Despite the enormous amount of money and talent both in
front of and behind the camera, The Avengers doesn't completely lick the
problems that have plagued all of the Marvel Studios productions to date --
among them stop-and-start storytelling and largely disappointing villains. On
the other hand, it does offer rousing action set-pieces that easily out-smash
its predecessors, some great superhero banter and a handful of nice, quiet grace
notes amidst all the larger-than-life battles. So The Avengers may be a more
modest success than some of us may have hoped, but it's still very much a
success.
One thing to note right off the top is that if you are familiar with -- and are
a fan of -- Whedon's work, don't go into The Avengers expecting to see a new
twist on well-worn material. Having been handed the keys to Marvel Studios'
biggest production ever, he plays it straight and down the middle, mostly
relegating his own distinct touches to the margins -- the pithy laugh line here,
the unexpected reversal there and, of course, the sudden demise of a familiar
character whose death is designed to make the audience think that anyone is
expendable. (Excluding, of course, any of the Big Four who all have sequels to
their individual adventures in the works.) To Whedon's credit, he adapts to the
Marvel house style readily. Even in its weakest passages, this film has the kind
of sturdy conviction that can only stem from a writer/director who fully
understands the material and characters he's working with.
And perhaps no passage of The Avengers is weaker than the first twenty minutes,
in which Whedon lumbers to get the top-heavy movie off the ground. Set down in a
nondescript high-security military facility, we watch S.H.I.E.L.D. head honcho
Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) glumly exposit about the movie's particular piece
of phlebotinum -- a glowing cube called "The Tesseract" that has the power to
open up doorways to other dimensions and worlds. This understandably makes it a
valuable object, so valuable that an inter dimensional visitor promptly shows up
to retrieve it. That would be Thor's adoptive brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston), who
has powered up significantly since we last saw him by aligning with an alien
race eager to invade dear ol' Earth. With the help of his trusty, weaponized
staff, he decimates Fury's forces and forcibly converts a few key players --
most notably lead scientist Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgård) and archer Clint
Barton A.K.A. Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) -- to his side, before escaping to parts
unknown to construct the gateway that will allow his extraterrestrial pals to
cross over. It's this looming threat that spurs Fury to re-activate his
discarded "Avengers Initiative" project, bringing in heavy-hitting heroes like
Bruce Banner's Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Tony Star's Iron Man (Downey) and Steve
Rogers' Captain America (Chris Evans) to protect Earth in its hour of greatest
need.
Two areas where Whedon typically excels in his own work are designing gripping,
inventive narratives that keeps the audience guessing as to what's going to
happen next and formidable, charismatic Big Bads for the heroes square off
against. Both of those elements are, unfortunately, missing from The Avengers.
Although the movie is packed with action and incident, there's not a lot of
intrigue or drama in the way the story unfolds; in fact, once the team is
assembled -- with Thor (Chris Hemsworth) crossing over from Asgard and Fury's
ownoperative the Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) adding a much-needed female
presence to this boys club -- the proceedings hit a sizeable dead spot, where
the entire team (plus the captured Loki) adjourn to a S.H.I.E.L.D. airship for
some hero-on-hero squabbling and bonding. This chunk of the movie feels almost
like a bottle episode, one of those installments of a weekly TV series where the
action is deliberately kept to one location to save on budget. And it's here
that the lack of a richer story becomes more pronounced; like the characters,
the film comes to feel stuck in place, with nothing driving it forward. Indeed,
the argument can be made that Whedon's Avengers never feels cinematic. In terms
of it's dramatics, it plays like a hugely expensive television movie. One thing
that might have helped with that is if Loki were written and acted to be a
smarter, craftier villain -- one who could match the Avengers in brains if not
brawn. The best comic book movie villains possess strong character arcs that
heighten their conflict with the heroes, be it The Joker's commitment to chaos
in
The Dark
Knight or Doctor Octopus's misguided sense of justice in Spider-Man 2. Loki
begins and ends The Avengers as little more than a petulant child throwing an
epic snit fit. This wasn't the case in Kenneth Branagh's
Thor. Loki, in that film
Loki had Shakespearean undertones.
The other thing about bottle episodes, though, is that they're often followed by
installments that pull out all the stops, and that's what happens here as soon
as the action shifts to New York for the big showdown between the united
Avengers and the invading aliens. Lasting a good forty minutes, this sequence is
tremendous fun, a mix of individual super-powered heroics and team dynamics. One
of the chief reasons Whedon landed this gig in the first place was his extensive
experience at assembling large groups of fighters (be they vampire slayers or
space cowboys) and throughout the movie, and particularly in this climax, he
spreads the wealth around, letting every character get a crowd-pleasing moment
and then integrating them back into the group. So there's Captain America, in
one moment taking out a squad of aliens with his shield and, in the next,
barking orders to Thor. And, meanwhile, there goes Hulk, smashing through
buildings solo and then appearing in the nick of time to scoop a falling Iron
Man out of the sky. Even Bryan Singer's X-Men movies never utilized the whole
team together in action as seamlessly and effectively as Whedon does here.
Beyond the brio of that final battle, the big pleasure of The Avengers lies in
watching these very different heroes (and actors) interact with each other. Not
surprisingly, Downey gets many of the biggest laughs (although there are times
when Stark's dialogue comes close to sounding like a standup routine), while
Evans has probably the most dramatic story as a man literally out of his own
time. But the movie's breakout star is, without question, Ruffalo's Hulk, a
character desperately in need of a makeover after two underwhelming screen
incarnations. (Although I still maintain that Ang Lee's
Hulk is at
least an interesting failure; Louis Letterier's semi-sequel is distinctly
third-tier Marvel.) Besides the actor's appealingly understated turn as Banner,
the green giant himself is well-used here, freed from the melodramatic
flourishes forced upon him in the previous two movies. The rest of the team is
solid, if not exceptional; after being the best thing about his individual
adventure, Hemsworth's
Thor cuts a less charismatic figure here, while
Johansson's Black Widow remains too much of an enigma to really connect with.
(Though the solo scene she shares with Loki is easily the best moment either of
them have in the movie.) Getting the short shrift are Renner's Hawkeye -- whose
primary personality trait is his ability to scowl on cue -- and Jackson's Fury,
once again relegated to glorified cameo status. Considering the monumental task
of integrating all these characters into one movie though, it's a testament to Whedon's skills that nobody feels entirely inessential to the proceedings. At
its most basic level, The Avengers is the story of how a group of individuals
comes together to form a cohesive unit. By laying the groundwork for this
transformation as effectively as he has, Whedon guarantees that the inevitable
sequel will likely be even mightier than the Avengers' imperfect, but
invigorating first adventure.
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